Transfusion #21: The Rainbow

Yesterday, at 3 weeks since her last transfusion, Adahlia received another blood transfusion. Her Hb was 7.7.

Adahlia is doing well. The transfusion was one of her better ones: one poke, and the blood bank processed the blood quickly so we were actually out of there by 4 pm. While we waited for the blood, I took her down to the main lobby, where a beautiful older woman played ragtime, jazz, and favorites like “Somewhere over the Rainbow,” on the piano.

Adahlia loves music, so we stayed there nearly an hour as she danced and charmed the Starbucks patrons, and enticed me to chase her around tables and chairs. Afterwards, for fun, we rode the sky tram down the hill and back up. It was only her second time on it, and she loved it. At that point, her blood was actually ready and waiting for us, so we hurried back and the nurses hooked it up to her IV. Another four hours later, and we were done.

Adahlia’s liver and kidney function tests are really pretty good. Her retic count (baby red blood cells) actually increased from an absolute number of 5+ to over 11. This is great news because it’s been hovering at 5 for the last couple months. In the past, it’s gone as high as the mid-thirties, and hopefully we will be seeing an upward trend!

The only negative is that her ferretin was up to 821. It’s really increased a lot in the last few months – it had held steady at about 500 for almost a year. Then, late fall, after I had started supplementing her diet with extra amino acids and antioxidants, it started rising quickly. Its odd, considering that I’m not supplementing her with iron (and it’s not in any of her multivitamins.) She is getting iron from nutritious food sources, but that supposedly shouldn’t be a problem. I wonder if she is simply absorbing her nutrients better? That could explain why the iron in her blood is rising.

At any rate, with her ferretin so high, I realized that it was imperative that we start Exjade immediately. Exjade selectively binds to iron and won’t help with the other heavy metal toxicity, but we should start seeing a downward trend of her blood iron levels. I gave her the first dose yesterday when we got back from the hospital, and another today. It did seem to make her drowsy, which is unfortunate, since she usually feels so good after transfusion and had just started getting her energy back after being so sick. But she perked up a couple hours after I administered it, running throughout Panera, chirping and squeaking and playing with anyone who would meet her eye.

I have to say that it breaks my heart (is it possible for it to keep breaking? It’s more like it deflates it, I suppose) to have to give her this medicine. Exjade is not approved for children under 2. There are scary risks involved in taking it, such as loss of hearing and vision. It is a new drug, which means it hasn’t been studied very long. They don’t really know what all the side effects could be, especially when given to a toddler, but there’s a long list of serious and undesirable ones, including, ironically, bone marrow failure.

But I have to give it to her. I tried homeopathy and natural methods, and it wasn’t enough. The alternative I have to giving her this medicine is iron overload, organ failure, and death. And it’s getting too close to the danger zone. So I have no choice. I have to dissolve this toxic substance in fluid and squirt it in her little mouth as she gazes at me with open eyes, and say “good job!” She trusts me take care of her. To do the right thing by her. And I give her yet another poison.

Such responsibility.

Of course, I know that if it weren’t for modern medicine, she would not be here today. This story would have ended a long time ago, when she was six weeks old.

Yet, “First, do no harm” is the guiding principle of natural medicine tenets.

And it seems that absolutely everything, everything, that as a natural health practitioner I wouldn’t have wanted for my child, I am forced to do to her. It tears me to pieces.

As we drove home from the hospital, and I knew what I would have to do when I got home, my eyes filled. Adahlia, of course, was fine – swaying and bobbing her head in rhythm to the music – and I rallied to join her with smiles and song. But as we drove up the hill to our house, my frustration mounted and silent, helpless tears spilled out onto my cheeks. What more could I have done? Why didn’t the homeopathy work? What am I missing?

And just then, as I pulled onto our street, I saw the most amazing thing: a rainbow stretched across it. Instantly, the gorgeous, vivid colors arching into the sky dried my sadness. I nodded. A message of hope: Don’t despair. This is just part of the journey, part of the plan.

Ok, I thought. Okay.

After all, this is where Chinese and natural medicine can really shine: In guiding out the toxic elements of necessary drug therapies. In mitigating discomfort. In reducing unwanted side effects and maximizing therapeutic benefit.

This is integrative medicine. And we can do this.

Before I let you go, I wish to share some very good news that we received this morning. Adahlia’s food intolerance, sensitivity, and allergy tests came back (IgG, IgE, and IgA antibodies) and she has absolutely no appreciable food reactivity. Zero! She can eat a full array of foods. She has no limits on the sources of her nutrition.

That’s huge.

That’s a huge, huge win for the power of natural health and breastfeeding. Her gut is intact and her immune system is not overreacting.

We can work with that.

Maybe, the digestive layer is what needed to heal first, before we could get to the deeper layer. We needed to heal the digestive element before we could get to the bone. From both a natural and Chinese medicine health perspective, that makes sense.

And so we press on.

Please continue to send your light, love, energy and prayers of love and health to Adahlia. There is great power in the mind and spirit. Let’s use it to effect a miraculous transformation.

Love,
Erika